Eboni's Harlem History Lesson

 

 

Eboni is hosting a dinner party. But instead of gathering the women again at her Extended Stay Hotel room, she’s summoned them to an alleged speakeasy in Harlem, but more on that in a moment. On the way there, Ramona is introducing us to, and sharing a ride with her new black friend and cast member, Bershan Shaw, as her plus-one. Bershan is a total delight with an infectious laugh whom I immediately like. Eboni’s dinner party is a thinly disguised excuse for another black history lesson. Before I begin, despite Eboni’s attempts to hijack the term , a speakeasy is an “illicit establishment” which dates all the way back to the prohibition era (1920-1933) when the sale of alcohol was Constitutionally banned.

 

 

Eboni has gifted each of the women with candles from some black owned company; each one named after some historic black person whom she deems representative of each white lady’s personality. This is all fine and dandy, however, she then had to run the theme into the underground by telling each of the women who they were assigned to at dinner. You see, each had a pamphlet sitting on their plates about someone from the “Harlem Renaissance” (as if that’s a thing). Eboni then proceeds with a history lesson about each of the subjects, but as Leah points out in a confessional, it’s a fail and the women quickly lose interest. I’m actually down with themed dinner parties, but Eboni is going about it all wrong. She should know by now that these over-the-hill party animals love nothing more than talking about themselves, so perhaps a “I have prepared a little pamphlet about an important person whom I think you guys should know about, and I hope you enjoy reading about them” would have been more apropos.  Even Bershan isn’t having it, and as Eboni bloviates throughout dinner, Berhan says “I’m so tired of this … we’re ALL the same. We’re Americans; black, White, and Asian!”. In her usual arrogant tone, Eboni says, “Um, no, sis, we’re not”. I can see already that Bershan was brought on for the sole purpose of shutting Eboni’s pie hole.

 

 

The next day at lunch, Leah delicately tries to tell Eboni that she might consider a different approach with her racist non-woke cast mates. The problem for Eboni, is she has no sense of balance, and can’t seem to get out of her preachy self-righteousness. Eboni gets defensive and references the deaths of the celebrated criminals George Floyd and Breonna Taylor as the reason for her continued “fight for justice”. Leah tells her that it’s not really her job, but what she’s really telling her is we need a little less militancy and a lot more “housewife”.

 

 

It’s the night after the stolen election, and Ramona has invited Eboni over to her home for some girl bonding, which is of course just an excuse for these two polar political opposites to have it out. Eboni immediately asks Ramona about her thoughts on the election, but Ramona shuts her down and says she doesn’t want to talk about it; however, she does manage to get in a little swipe pertaining to the illegitimacy of the election due to the unprecedented mail-in voting cheating. Ramona repeats, “I don’t want to talk about politics!”, but Eboni continues baiting Ramona; this time with her phony admiration of Kamala Harris as VP. Then in a talking head, she displays her full blown penchant for identity politics by tellng us that she thought that “as women”, she and Ramona would find common ground over a woman advancing.

 

 

Ramona knows that you can’t argue with “stupid”, and finally tells Eboni that she’s taking a breather (in the other room). Ramona returns and again, they both try one failed approach after the other until a truse is finally called. Exhausted, they collapse into each other’s arms.

 

All in all, it was an enjoyable episode, but I really don't know how much more of Eboni I can take.  I get that Eboni's message is timely and important and all that, but the woman is just becoming an obnoxious bore.  I have to believe that production realized this during filming/editing and that's why they brought on Bershan; the ying as it were, to Eboni's yang.  As Eboni told me personally on SM (before "she took a break") ... "Just keep on watching".